Unfortunately, we didn’t think to snap the picture that would have been worth a thousand words.  Machine parts were lying about while the repairman tried to attend to the needs of our aged and ailing photocopier.  He practically crawled inside the machine looking for the proverbial missing screw, although in this case it was an actual missing screw.  As he replaced springs and repaired other broken parts he gave us the bad news.  “This machine is really old!” (We were already well aware.)  “In fact,” he continued, “this is the last month in which the company will even be making parts for it.”  (Hmmm… that was serious bad news).

You see, as Cru ministries, churches, Christian schools, and a wide variety of other “ministering Christians” plan and prepare for international summer post, we are in the midst of our busiest season of printing special-order, bilingual gospel booklets. With English on one page and the same text in the chosen foreign language on the facing page, these booklets serve as great gifts for hotel maids, cab drivers (camel drivers, too), tour bus guides, and other service personnel.  And they are especially attractive to students who jump at the chance to practice English with an American.

In the past 12 months our New Life Resources teammate Linda Pearce (pictured on the left) has wrestled with the aging, temperamental copy machine to produce over 7,830 of these bilingual booklets in 32 of the 62 languages we can print.

By the way, last week we heard Linda exclaim from the printing room, “Oh no!!! These are Swedish, not Swahili!”

She had clicked the wrong language on the disk from which she prints the bilingual booklets.  We assured Linda that her “mistake” might actually be a “God-send” for someone soon. So, in her spare time, Linda has collated, stapled, cut, folded, counted, and banded 26 packs (ten per pack) of the Swedish booklets.  It’s “First Come, First Served,” if your mission team is headed to Sweden!!!

You probably have a clue as to the destination of the booklets printed in Polish, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, and Italian. But can you guess where the following languages will be used: Tswana, Hmong-White, Amharic?  Please pray for all the booklets to be powerful tools unto salvation wherever they go around the world this summer.

And, seriously, please pray that our copy machine will hold together and keep running smoothly.